


what might have been lost

by orphan_account



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: CW: Suicide, CW: alcohol, M/M, cw: drug use, cw: overdose, that's a soft major character death but.... watch it fellas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:07:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7231234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>five times jack and kent loved each other (and one time they couldn't)</p>
            </blockquote>





	what might have been lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calclutterfuck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calclutterfuck/gifts).



> a hundred thousand thank yous to my beautiful beta ellie (ollieomeara on tumblr) for saving my life. ily.  
> this is vaguely inspired by parse ii, where rans and holtzy are talking about all the ridiculous hockey rpf they've read. also somewhat inspired by the best fic i've ever read, [fated to pretend](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3902428) by [nighimpossible](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nighimpossible/pseuds/nighimpossible).  
> i kinda screwed with your prompt a little, but i hope you like it anyway!!  
> title is from the wolves by bon iver. if u know me irl don't read the first 1... ill never b able 2 make eye contact w/ u again. thx

**i.**

“Hey, Rans, what're you reading?”

Ransom looked up from his phone.  “Well, uh... I kinda found this story about Jack and Kent Parson online.”

“Oh, cool.  Can I check it out?”

“It's pretty wild, man.  I don't know if you're up for this kind of content.”

“Try me.”

“Well… okay.”  Ransom swiped up to the top and handed the phone over, watching carefully at Holster's expression as he read.

 

_Kent returned late that night, when the sky above was dark and beginning to show stars.  He had a few drinks in him, enough to make him feel a moment's false courage.  When he went up to his room, Jack was asleep on his bed, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and splayed out over the still-tucked blankets like the Savior on the Cross.  Kent ran his eyes up and down his lean, muscular frame and bit his lip._

_He wanted to fuck his way into Jack's tight body, watch his eyelashes flutter as he came.  He wanted to see his eyes widen in surprise.  Most of all, he wanted to hold him down, leave bruises on the protruding bones of his hips; bite his pouty lower lip until it was flushed red as his cheeks.  God, he wanted to ravish him.  He wanted to make him cry out his name, he wanted to make him sob it, jaw slack from pleasure.  Jack stirred in his sleep and let out a sweet, breathy sound that made Kent only want to fuck him more._

_He figured that Jack wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, and he closed the door behind himself as he locked himself in the bathroom, palming his erection through his sweats._

_“God,” he hissed as he perched on top of the toilet seat, yanking down his pants and spitting into his hand for slick.  He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, thinking as hard as he could about Jack, only Jack._

_Jack's shy smile, the unyielding, steady way he stood.  Jack's big shoulders, Jack's strong arms, Jack's soft black hair.  Jack undressing himself, slipping out of his clothes as easily as he cut across the ice.  Jack sucking his cock, Jack beneath him, Jack, Jack, Jack._

_He came all over his hand, and after a moment of laying back with his eyes closed trying to regain his breath, he stood up to wash himself off.  As he rinsed his hand, he heard Jack begin to stir in the bedroom._

_“Kent?” he called out tentatively, and Kent grimaced._

_“I'm in here,” he replied after a moment, and reached over to release the lock.  When Jack appeared, scratching his head and yawning, at the door, they stared at each other for a few seconds._

_“How are you?” Jack said finally._

_Kent huffed out a laugh.  “I'm – I'm alright, I think.”_

_“Okay.”  Jack stifled a yawn.  “Well, I'm going to go back to bed.”_

_“Alright.”_

_“G'night.”_

_Kent stared down at his hands for a while before he turned into the bedroom and did something he knew he was going to regret.  Shucking his clothes off, he carefully folded himself into the bed next to Jack, already fast asleep again, and shut his eyes._  I love you, _he thought.  In no time at all he was sleeping._

 

“ _Dude,_ ” Holster breathed.  “What the hell was that?”

“Yeah, I mean- that was what I tried to warn you about.”

“No, wait! That was actually pretty sexy. Like, I was enjoying that, man.”

“What the fuck, Holtzy?  'Jack' is _Jack_.  Our captain. The guy who helps come up with our plays and likes shitty World War II documentaries and dad rock. _That_ Jack.”

“Shoot me, I can separate fiction from fact.  And that? Was hot.”

“You're weird,” Ransom grumbled.

“Whatever, bro.  Just go to the next chapter, already.  We've still got seven more to go.”

 

**ii.**

“What are you reading?”

“Another fic,” Ransom confessed, hunched anxiously over his phone.  Holster walked around him to read over his shoulder.

 

_“Well, you know,” Jack said nervously.  “The draft's tomorrow.  I- I was hoping we could see each other one last time.”_

_Kent glanced up from his phone only momentarily.  “Well? You're looking at me, aren't you?”_

_“I-” Jack stood delicately still for a moment, swaying slightly on his feet and waiting for a response, but when none came, he turned and left the room.  A feeling that was becoming all too familiar lurked in the pit of his stomach, and he struggled to blink the wave of rapidly-forming tears back behind his eyelids._

_As he watched Jack walk away, Kent dug the fingernails of his left hand into the meat of his palm.  A sharp, acute pain spread from the tip of each finger.  This was for the best, he reminded himself.  This hurt Jack less, in the long run.  It hurt them both less._

 

“That's heavy, man.  What's the fic about?”

“Well, do you remember when Jack overdosed?  And there were some people who thought… it might not have been an accident, right?”

“Yeah, but that's total BS, right?”

“I don't know, man.  This fic, though – it's a swap, kinda?  Like, it's taking that idea and saying, y'know, 'what if Kent tried to off himself instead?'”

“Sounds like a real bummer.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna keep going?”

“Yeah.”

 

I love you _, he wrote._  I love you, and I always have.  I won't ever stop.

 _Setting the paper down,_ _Kent shook the pills out into his hand and began to swallow them, one at a time at first, and then three or four at once.  There was a lump in his throat that the pills couldn't get past; he forced them down until he had taken them all._

 _Kent lowered himself down onto the floor and closed his eyes, feeling the sleep coming.  Jack wouldn't be back for hours.  He could see the headlines:_ Top Prospect Dies Before Draft.  K _ent Parson wasn't anybody anymore, only a footnote at the bottom of Jack's story if at all.  His last thought was that it had always been inevitable, like the sun coming up in the morning; the name Zimmermann across the back of a jersey._

 

Stunned, Ransom turned his phone off; it made a clicking sound like a book being shut.

“Wow,” he managed, looking over at Holster, who had a similarly dazed expression on his face.

“Wow,” Holster agreed, staring down at the dark screen of Ransom's phone.

 

**iii.**

“Can we read another AU?  I liked that coffee shop one.”

“The new law is complete works only.  And this one has, like, three hundred comments, it's probably really good.”

“Fine, we can read it.  I guess.”

 

_They won the Memorial Cup._

_(Later, Kent won the Stanley Cup, and that was good.  But winning in Rimouski, with Jack at his side?  That was better.)_

_The air caught in his lungs when he looked at Jack as they hoisted the Cup over their heads, the two of them together, the captain and his alternate, the future of hockey.  Kent watched the tight line of Jack's jaw, and his eyes, sad and tired even when he was smiling.  He thought of the plastic case zipped into Jack's jacket pocket, one pill in each little slot._

_In the presser afterwards, Kent wrapped his arm around Jack's shoulders.  “Everyone thought we couldn't do it,” he said breathlessly.  “Everyone said we couldn't, and we did.  We did it.”_

_Someone shoved a microphone in Jack's face, and he seemed startled, but as he spoke he smiled as genuinely as Kent had ever seen.  “I'm proud of the team.  They're a great group of guys.”_

_Someone said something again about the two of them going first in the draft, and the two of them scoring those final, amazing goals, and everything was the two of them, Zimmermann and Parson, Parse and Zimms._

_“Your father must be very proud of you,” said someone, out of what felt like nowhere.  Jack opened his mouth to reply, but Kent grabbed his arm and dragged him away, back towards the locker room.  “No further questions,” he said._

 

_There was a party afterwards, of course – billet parents could be persuaded, and they had just won the Memorial Cup.  Cutler, the second string goalie, broke open the liquor cabinet, and everything passed by in a smudge of bright light and strong drinks and noise._

_Kent was a party person.  Slay him, he didn't care – he loved dancing, drinking, reckless teenage abandon; whatever you wanted to call it, Kent was a fan._

_Jack, for the most part, was the opposite.  He would never pass up a few drinks, but if it was possible, he'd far prefer to enjoy them in the comfort of his own home.  If he could, he'd be at the rink 24/7; no parties, no school, no anything, except for Kent.  But he took what he could get, and, when it came to Kent, he could be persuaded._

_So they went to a party.  It was stupid, sure, and Kent probably should have been getting ready for school in the morning, but he wasn’t.  He was hands-down going to be a first round pick in the fucking NHL draft, okay?  School was just an inconvenience; a roadblock he had to pass along the way.  Jack had dropped out after eleventh grade to get his GED, but that didn't really matter beyond legality.  He had hockey to play._

_The party, though.  It was alright, as far as parties went; Kent had been to worse, but he'd been to better, too.  Jack sipped from the same cup all night, and he kept refilling it with something when Kent wasn't paying attention.  Kent didn't have any, but it smelled gross when he stuck his nose up to it.  Too strong for his liking._

_It was around eleven, before the party had even really taken off, when Kent noticed how pale Jack's face was.  “You okay?” he asked, setting his hand in the crook of Jack's elbow.  He tried not to think about the way Jack flinched away from his touch._

_“I'll be fine,” Jack said, and reached towards his pocket for the pills Kent knew were there._

_“You sure?”_

_“I'll be fine,” he repeated, mechanically.  “Do you know where the kitchen is?”_

_Kent wordlessly pointed upstairs.  Jack followed his finger, and Kent went the same way after a few seconds' wait.  The kitchen was still dark, undisturbed by the commotion in the basement, though Kent supposed that it was only a matter of time.  Silently, he watched as Jack put one pill in his mouth, and then another.  And then another._

_Kent walked over before he knew what he was doing, and he quietly said, “That's enough” after the fourth.  Jack looked like he was ready to argue, but Kent tugged the case out of his hands and Jack didn't make any move to stop him._

_“It's okay, Jack,” Kent whispered._

_“Okay,” Jack said._

_“Okay.”_

_He lifted his cup and drank.  Kent watched the line of his throat as the pills went down, and thought about how bitter they must have tasted._

_“Let's go back downstairs,” he said._

_“Okay.”_

_“Okay.”_

_Kent tagged alongside Jack for the rest of the night.  He was with him when he stepped out onto the porch, and when he kept walking, off the porch, across the lawn, down the street.  Neither of them said anything as they walked down the street, then turned down and walked towards Kent's house._

_The house was dark – Kent's billet family were at a church event or something that night, and they wouldn’t be back until late.  No matter, the back door was always unlocked.  Jack went around back, then down the outside stairs, and jiggled the handle until the door opened.  Still perfectly composed, he went inside, leaving the door open to let Kent come in.  He stopped at the stereo by the TV, pressed play, and then went straight to the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him._

_Kent pressed his ear to the door.  He could hear Jack retching.  In the background, Brian Wilson was sweetly singing that the sun had almost slipped away._

_He turned the handle, pushed the door open.  Jack was pale and shaking, hunched over the toilet._

_“Not now, Kent,” he said tiredly, almost the first words he'd spoken since they'd left the arena earlier that night.  Kent nodded and went back into the living room downstairs, and curled up on the armchair in the corner._

_The toilet flushed, the sink ran, the light clicked off.  Jack came in and sat on the floor, leaned up against the couch.  There was a studied sort of silence in the room, like they were both trying as hard as they could not to make any sound at all.  Kent stared as hard as he could at the wall in front of him.  Jack focused on his knees, drawn up to his chest._

_“Why haven't you been coming to parties with me lately?” Kent said after a while._

_“I came with you earlier, didn't I?”_

_“There was no way you could have gotten out of that one.”  Jack grunted in what Kent took to be assent.  “But you just threw up.  Do you have, like, that fear?  Of going out- agoraphobia?”_

_“I don't feel well, Kent,” said Jack, defensive.  “I throw up all the time, I'm always cold, my throat is raw.  If you felt like this, you wouldn't want to go out, either.”_

_“Why don't you go to a doctor, then?”_

_Jack shook his head.  “It's nothing.  Just a stupid cold that I can't shake.  I'm being a baby about it, anyways.  Will you get me a Sprite or something?”_

_Kent couldn't argue anymore.  He went upstairs and got Jack a can of ginger ale out of the fridge, and they turned on the television.  There was an old Oilers game on.  Someone was commenting, but the volume was all the way down, and the closed captioning was confusingly sporadic, just a word here and a word there.  Kent stared at Jack, whose eyes were on the screen.  He sipped at his soda._

_“Jack,” he said._

_“Hmm?” Jack replied absently, fiddling with the tab on his soda can._

_“Jack,” Kent repeated._

_Jack looked up.  He set his drink down on the floor, and stood to hover over Kent.  “Is this what you want?” he asked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world._

_Kent knew what he was asking, but he had no idea how to respond._

_“Because I want it, too,” Jack tacked on the end, and that was all the persuasion Kent needed to lean up and smash their lips together.  He had kissed people before, a few girls here and there and one guy, but none of them came even close to Jack._

_It wasn't that he was particularly good – he wasn't, actually; he had no idea what he was doing and even someone with as little experience as Kent could tell.  But, as always with Jack, he was trying so hard._

_“Hey, Jack,” Kent said breathlessly after a moment.  “Hey, call Mrs. Jeppson and tell her that you're staying the night.”_

_Jack looked down and grinned bashfully.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Okay, yeah.”_

 

“Okay, I actually really liked that one,” Holster said.  “It was way more… upbeat than the other ones.”

“Ehh,” Ransom responded, wiggling his hand.  “Except for the explicit pill popping and Jack probably having a panic attack.”

“Well, sure.  But they just won the Memorial Cup!”

“And you know what comes next,” Ransom pointed out.  “I mean, the tags are all there.  'Overdose,' 'Underage Drinking,' 'Anal Fingering.'”

“Stop being such a wet blanket.  And look, it's right there!  'Confessions of Love.'  That sounds good, right?”

“I'll believe it when I see it.”

 

**iv.**

“Yooo!  This one was written by someone here at Samwell!”

“What?  How do you know?”

“Says so right here.   _Author's Note: Like Jack, I go to Samwell, and I was at the hockey team's frat house for the infamous party when Kent appeared and Jack disappeared soon afterwards.  I know we'd all like to think they had a steamy makeout session-_ alright, yadda yadda yadda, the rest doesn't really matter.”

“Bro… the party Kent appeared at, that was Epikegster 2k14!  Who do you think wrote this?”

“I don't know, man.  Maybe if we read it we'll figure it out?”

“Sounds good, dude.”

 

_“That wasn't-”_

_“_ How would I have known, Zimms?   _We never talked, we still don't.  You were my best friend, Jack.”  Then, quietly, almost religiously, like a confession: “I thought I had killed you.”_

_“Kent...” Jack reached out, hesitantly, to set a gentle hand on Kent's heaving shoulder._

_Kent knew Jack's hands intimately – he had, anyway.  New scars formed, cells were replaced, hands changed.  He thought about brushing Jack away, but he allowed him to stay, if only for a moment longer._

_“And instead I'm alone in the NHL,” he said, his voice shaking, “and everything is so 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' and I can't fucking do this without you, Zimms, I can't.”_

_There was a pause, and then Jack said, “Kent, do you... miss me?”  Hesitantly, he added, “I miss you.”_

_“A part of me died after you overdosed,” Kent said quietly.  “And it was the best part.”_

_“You think so?”_

_“That's all there is to say about it.”_

_Jack went silent for a moment, and then he said, “I don't think the best part of you is dead.  I think it's still there.  But it's- hidden, I think.  Dormant.”_

_“Yeah?  Why do you think that?”_

_“You shut that part of yourself off.  Because- because you didn't want to be hurt the way I hurt you again.  Because you're too scared to find out what'll leave you next.”_

_Kent stared at a thread in the carpet.  "Sure.”  Jack had always seemed to know him better than he knew himself.  No point in stopping because they hadn't seen each other like this in years, or because Kent doubted they'd see each other like this for years to come._

_“Kent, I love you," Jack whispered, and then, "I'm sorry."  It was the first time he'd said it._

_“Me, too,” Kent said.  They didn't say any good-byes. Kent cried himself to sleep that night, for the first time since he found Jack barely breathing on the bathroom floor._

 

 _“Whoa._   That was intense.”

“It was, like… poetic.  Who at Samwell is a poet?”

“Man, I don't know.”

“Me, neither.  Scroll up, I want to read it again!  This one's probably my favorite so far.”

“Eh, I liked the one where they got a dog.”

“That's just 'cause you like dogs, dude, the writing was terrible.”

 

**v.**

“What's this one about?”

Ransom and Holster had slipped into an almost-routine trying to work their way through the entire Jack Zimmermann/Kent Parson Ao3 tag, always finding time between classes and practices or in the evenings.  It hadn't quite replaced Holster's sitcom time, but he was down to an episode a night, which Ransom thought was the closest he was ever going to get.

“Jack and Kent, Rans, just sit down and read it.”

With surprisingly minimal grumbling, Ransom complied.

 

_Jack is eighteen, and these things are still too big for him to understand.  He looks at Kent and he sees himself, he sees his father, he sees his mother, he sees a woman whose eyes he caught once, only in passing, and he knows he will never see her again but he still thinks of her sometimes.  He hopes that she still thinks of him, too, but he knows that he has better things to hope for, so he does._

_Everything in Jack's head is a ramble, long and uncharacteristically verbose and like a tangled mess of string he wants so badly to unravel._

_That's where Kent is, and it's where hockey is, and maybe Kent and hockey are one and the same.  He doesn't know.  All that he does know is that when he sets his skates down on the ice, it's where his brain goes, his whole life balanced on two blades.  And he knows that Kent brings that same feeling with him – everything Jack is chases after the feel of Kent's skin on his, the touch of Kent's fingertips on his chest, the hard softness of Kent's lips against his own._

_It's the same as he swallows his pills.  He can almost imagine Kent there next to him, the way his eyes look when Jack says “I love you” back, the way their passes connect, the way he and Kent have always known each other so well, and he can't stop but he can tell he's making a mistake._

**_CHAPTER 11_ **

_Every hospital waiting room Kent has been in is the same, more or less.  There are different chairs, of course; different patterns in the carpet, different unobtrusive paintings and photographs on the pale, bland walls.  Sometimes there's a fish tank, or a television with a children's movie on.  But in every hospital waiting room Kent has been in, there's always been the same sense of anticipation._

_Usually it's nervous – everyone waiting anxiously for an appointment or some kind of news, whether it be good or bad.  Sometimes it's bored, siblings or children dragged along and quickly exhausting the tired supply of old copies of Highlights.  Right now, the anticipation is frightened.  It takes Kent a while to realize that he's the only one in the room, and the tension he feels everywhere is exuding from himself and himself alone._

_The walls are a warm yellow color.  The carpet is brown with green stripes.  There's a photo above the empty receptionist's desk of a leaf, and a close-up of some pine needles, and a big painting to his right of a mountain._

_There's a door against the far wall.  Jack is somewhere past it.  They won't let Kent in, even after he rode the whole way with him in the ambulance.  Even after he had to keep looking at Jack's blue lips and pale face without knowing if he was going to make it to the morning._

_“Family only,” one of the nurses had told him, and he was ready to argue, but she looked exhausted, and he didn't want to add to her troubles.  So instead he stays in the waiting room and paces back and forth, still in his pajamas, hair a wild mess, shoes unlaced from when he had jammed them right onto his feet._

_He calls Bob and Alicia, hoping they don't hear the fear in his voice when he says, “It's bad.”  They'll be there soon. Kent doesn't stop pacing._

 

**+i.**

Jack was definitely doing his best to live the real college experience, Kent thought as he pulled up to the house.  It was a veritable frat house, ramshackle and barely held together, like one good gust of wind could knock it over.  He checked one last time that the number Sharpied on the mailbox matched the address Bob and Alicia had given him.

“Well, alright,” he muttered, and stepped out of his car, the Stanley Cup under his arm.

He knocked on the door.  It was opened by a guy about his size, with a sick 'stache, killer flow and nothing but a pair of Samwell sweats on.

“Hi,” he said.

Shirtless Dude's eyes widened.  “Kent-motherfuckin'-Parson!” he crowed, clapping him exuberantly on the arm as he pulled him inside.  “You magnificent bastard, you!  Why are we blessed by your glorious presence today?”

“Got a… gift for someone here,” Kent said.  He gestured with the trophy under his arm.

“Alright, hold the fuck up.”  Two other members of the team (he assumed) appeared, the taller one leaping over the shorter.  “Do mine eyes behold thirty four point five pounds of silver and nickel alloy?  Under the arm of the top dog in the NHL?  Shitty, why were we not informed that one Mr. Kent Parson was dropping by?  And with the Stanley Cup, no less?  Rans and I could have cranked this up to Epikegster levels faster than you can blink.”

Shitty(?) gesticulated wildly.  “If I had known, I would have initiated the Epikegster myself.”

“So, how can we help you?” said a new voice to his left.  Kent looked down (fucking _finally_ ) to a short girl with dark hair.

“Sorry?”

The girl tossed back the rest of her drink and looked Kent up and down, appraisingly. “You're here to talk to Jack, aren't you?”

Kent nodded, feeling a little chastised for being so obvious.

“He's upstairs – you want me to take you?”

“It's fine, can you just... tell me where he is?”

“First door on the right.  Knock first, it's usually locked.”

“Thanks.”

She grunted in response, and Kent went upstairs.  The hallway was narrow, and the floorboards were painfully creaky.  Kent thought about what he remembered of Jack's parents' house, the neat furniture and shiny surfaces and tidy rooms, and wondered if he'd ever understand what had forced Jack to fuck up so badly that he ended up in that noisy, shitty excuse for human habitation.

“Hey, Jack?” he said, tapping his knuckles against the first door to the right like he had been told. “You in there?”

“Sorry, Shits, just give me a sec.”  Kent heard something rustling inside; pages turning, maybe, and again the creaking of the old house underfoot.  The lock clicked, and the handle turned, and- “Oh.”

Jack looked good.  He'd finally trimmed his stupid hair, and he was frozen right in the middle of scratching the back of his head, a few loose strands curling around his face.  The last of his baby fat had finally vanished, and he had cheekbones that must have made even his mom jealous.

He looked older, though – which he was, Kent reminded himself, but that wasn't right.  He looked older than he really was, like he had aged two years for every one that Kent had, and it made something in Kent's stomach flip uncomfortably.  Like he was swimming, and he had tried to set his foot on the ground, but the water was deeper than he thought, and there was nothing there.

“Hey, Zimms,” Kent said, as evenly as he could.

“Hi, Kent,” Jack said quietly.  A stray lock of his hair fell down across his forehead, and it framed his face in a way that made Kent's heart hurt. “Congrats on the Cup.”

“Thanks.  Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, Jack stepped to the side to let Kent in, and closed the door behind him.

“Why did you come here?” he said, without preamble.

“I don't know,” Kent confessed.  “I started feeling stupid the second I knocked on the door and your weird friend with the mustache answered it.”

Jack cracked a smile at that, one that Kent didn't recognize.  He tried not to think about it too much.

Despite his obvious discomfort, Jack's proper Canadian manners prevailed, and he said, “Well, come sit down, I guess.”

Kent perched himself on the edge of Jack's bed, setting his ridiculous trophy down as delicately as he could.  “How's school?”

“Fine.”

“How's… your team?”

“Fine.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You're chatty today.”

“It's not like I really want to talk to you, Kent.”

“Thanks.”  Kent snorted.

“Do you think you can just… do this?  Show up unannounced, when I'm finally somewhere safe, and make me feel like I have to start at the beginning again?”

“I don't know, Jack!  Do you think you can just get up and disappear on me the way you did?”

“Not everything is fucking about you, Kent!”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“It's pretty obvious that you don't!”

“Sometimes, I useta wish you had died,” Kent said, suddenly.  “Because then you never woulda had to see how bad I fucked you up.  Do you remember the last words I said to you, before you overdosed?”

“No,” Jack whispered, all fight knocked out of him as suddenly as it had appeared.  He still could barely remember anything of that month before the draft.  The last week was nothing but a black and blond blur in his memory, bright lights flashing behind his vision when he tried to call the memories up.

“I told you that I loved you,” Kent said, smiling mirthlessly at his younger self.  “It was the first time I let myself say it.  I told you that I loved you, and you were asleep when I said it, but you stirred a little, so I thought you heard it and the next time I saw you, I thought you were dead, Jack.  I thought-”  He huffed a breath, like he was laughing, but he wiped his eyes almost aggressively with the back of his hand.  “I thought that you had finally saved yourself from me, and I was happy.   _God_ , can you imagine that?  I was _happy_ thinking that you were dead, and not even for your sake, but for my own.  How's that for thinking everything is about me?”

“Kenny,” Jack whispered, and it seemed like he was going to say something more for a moment, but instead he buried his face in his hands, and then he was crying, too.

Jack was broken and soft where Kent was hard and bitter, and neither of them could stand to be near one another.  Not even after everything they did together, summers and years and lifetimes ago.

“You should leave,” Jack said, affecting his usual monotone, though his voice trembled.

“I should,” Kent agreed.  “Christ, I don't know what I was thinking, coming here.”

“Me neither.”

After another silent moment, Kent left, and the second he returned to his room he went to bed.  When he finally managed to fall asleep, his dreams were elaborate and intricate – blades and ice and blue eyes; fights and fingernails and forgetting.  He didn't remember them in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it!!! PLEASE let me know if there are any mistakes i need to fix!  
> thank you for reading!!!!!


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